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World's Largest Digital Camera Searches Skies for Deadly Asteroids

by Caleb Johnson on June 22, 2010 at 06:30 AM

World's Largest Digital Camera
If there's one thing Hollywood has taught us, it's that the Earth will most likely be destroyed by a flaming rock from outer space. Luckily, researchers are hip to this idea. According to Space.com, a massive telescope anchored in Hawaii houses the world's largest digital camera, which scans the sky for asteroids that could eradicate humanity. The PS1 telescope, which sits on a volcanic peak in Maui, is relatively small. (Its primary mirror is just 60 inches wide.) However, the digital camera housed inside it boasts 1.4 billion pixels, and can photograph a piece of the sky about 40 times the surface area of the moon. Over the next three years, as part of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PAN-STARRS), the camera will snap about 500 photos each night, map about 75-percent of the sky, and locate around 100,000 asteroids. Researchers will study the images, and determine whether or not any of the space rocks could threaten life on Earth.

The PS1 is just a prototype and, if it's successful, telescope with 40 times the strength could be installed in Hawaii. Still, nobody is saying what will happen if researchers actually do spot an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Our best bet is that the plan will somehow involve Bruce Willis. [From: Space.com, via: MSNBC]

Tags: asteroids, camera, deep impact, DeepImpact, digital camera, DigitalCamera, panstarrs, research, space, telescope, top

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